European Night: Markets and Dance

Gooood day Lion's I trust you are safe and well and enjoying your weeks end, this weekend is a long weekend in Australia and interestingly enough summer has really dragged on which has felt quite nice. Despite the Northern parts of Australia currently in a Cyclone warning emergency.

There has been heavy winds, lots of damage as well as flooding and huge swell, but Aussies have become too accustomed to watching doomsday T.V shows and movies that when they think Cyclone they think world ending events. Most things in Australia aren't as bad as they are in other parts of the world and we also have different building codes with most our buildings able to withstand quite alot.

But enough with the downer talk and let's get onto the good stuff

Community Market

This month it was once again a themed market with a great community turn out with this months theme being Europe which brought us many tastes, flavours, foods from across many different European nations.

We also had a showcase of different cultural groups from Europe turning up to perform their traditional national dance, song and performances which helps bridge cultural gaps as well as give a bit of flare to the land down-under that is Australia.

Australia is one of the most unique nations as it is home to more than 270 different ethnic groups despite being perceived as Anglo-Celtic but our population is actually global and quite mixed. This provides us the ability to eat in any nation on any given night without even having to leave our boarders.

We're also well cultured on many fronts with knowledge of many different cultural group beliefs and most of us can swear fluently in at least 20 different languages.

Food, Laughter and Love

What better way to bridge cultural gaps than with food? and every good market night is filled with foods although this market had a lot of different cultural foods which is always a great addition and a great way for people to bond.

It's important because as people food is vital for our survival and if everyone is eating everyone is often happy this enables us to develop positive associations with the culture and helps overcome negative stereotypes as well as foster community acceptance.

Beyond that, who doesn't love a good old pizza pie? One of my favourites growing up and still is.

Music and Dance

Music and dance is another great way to connect people and I have to admit the melodies playing at the market ranging from the Tarantella to other traditional folk law music really set a calming atmosphere.

The kids loved rolling around on the grass and dancing the evening away. There were two locations for people to just chill and talk, eat some food or just walk about the market stalls.

With plenty of things to see and do for the kids this was also a lot of great fun and my daughter loved the face painting, if you have been following along she often misses out on face painting because of long lines but we were able to have her face painted today which was a sigh of relief for her!

Local Business Support

And of course let's not forget the core reason why these markets are established and that is to enable local businesses to sell products and capture a new market outside the common models. Providing a way to enable people to earn an income really helps as we move through a cost of living crisis.

Overall the evening was a great success and I can't wait for next months event to see what else we can engage in and have fun doing!

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